My walk this week braves the bitter wind blowing across Britain from Siberia. I have never seen ice like this on our local river, the Afon Dulais, but despite this and the fact that the rest of the country was under thick snow, we had next to none of it! The “beast from the east” and Storm Emma brought high winds and bitter cold but we were disappointed not to get any snow when seemingly all around us a colour, texture and acoustic change was taking place across the land.

Never mind, despite the ice feeling like it was inside my fingers, I still enjoyed my walk and the sights and sounds were still different to normal, but more of that later in the week. There was still some colour and pattern to be found around me on this semi urban walk through a small woodland by the Afon Llan behind industrial buildings and although there is a bright rust colour showing in the ditch water below, that is not necessarily the result of pollution, though I wouldn’t want to take a bet on it.